"The superb IF YOU STAND WITH YOUR BACK TO THE SLOWING OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT IN WATER begins as a study of various kinds of motion. Images from an aerial tram leaving Manhattan are followed by images of a nearly static bird, of bugs fighting, and of light bending as it passes through glass. Near the film's end the tram lands in Manhattan, as if it had reversed direction; as in all of Murray's films, the images and the editing can pull several ways at once. There are no absolutes, and even the light by which we see is altered by the material it passes through."
- Fred Camper

"(It) show(s) an extraordinary sensitivity to the sensual, rhythmic and connotative qualities of image and sound, whether purloined or created, and establishes her as a masterful editor and a visionary filmmaker."
- Chris Gehman

"The film aims to illuminate a vital sense innate to perception where inversion is counterbalance and focal myopia the articulation of space".
- Julie Murray